Saturday, April 30, 2011

The early line

Obligations lie ahead. I'm going to open the Saturday line. Some notes:

* NO CAMERAS IN COURT: Mara Leveritt reports that no cameras, audio or livestreaming will be allowed in circuit court when the West Memphis Three present evidence that their convictions in the 1993 slayings of three West Memphis children should be overturned.

* TOMMY TUBERVILLE IS A BIRTHER: Tommy Tuberville, Harmony Grove and Southern State's gift to major college football coaching, turned up on Sean Hannity's show of all places the other day and opined that President Obama must have something to hide about his country of origin. I kid you not. Twilight Zone post of the day.

* NEVER HIT A CHILD: A coalition working to end corporal punishment in schools — it's ineffective, it's assault, it teaches all the wrong sorts of messages — has written Arkansas officials, including the governor, to object to use of the the paddle at Marshall High School. Statistics indicate, on average, about 4 beatings per school day.

An Arkansas anti-abortion law is a phony. It's about ending abortion, not protecting women and a New York Times writer says it could present an important case for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Arkansas Supreme Court continues to grapple, with divisions, on how to square new federal and state law on resentencing people who got life without parole sentences for capital crimes committed when they were minors.

Welcome to Arkansas: Land of cowardly politicians, discriminatory laws, inhumane turkey drops and lots and lots of Trump voters.

Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill alone among Arkansas's House delegation voted last week against a measure that provided $36.5 billion in disaster aid, a portion for hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico as well as money for wildfire response and to support the flood insurance program.

UAMS, pressed by financial problems for several years, told the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees today that it had a $1.5 billion operating budget that doesn't call for deficit spending.

Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Bart Virden of Morrilton, who narrowly survived attack ads by an outside partisan group supporting his opponent for re-election to a nonpartisan seat, doesn't intend to let the matter drop.

Do what Donald Trump says or leave the country. Is that the embodiment of the 1st Amendment or what?

KARK/Fox 16 reports that Little Rock police have identified skeletal remains found Tuesday in a west Little Rock park as those of Ebby Steppach, the 17-year-old who's been missing since her car was found in that park abandoned in 2015.

Enjoy these photos from today's dedication and re-installation of a new Ten Commandments monument. The first iteration of the monument was installed last June but destroyed within the next 24 hours when it was rammed by a man in a Dodge Dart.